Representing the last stage of mental & bodily exhaustion from Onanism or Self-pollution, coloured engraving from The Secret Companion, a medical work on onanism or self-pollution, with the best mode of treatment in all cases of nervous and sexual debility, impotency, etc by R. J. Brodie, 1845, Plate 2. From the Wellcome Library, London

Albert Grass Adventures of a Dreamer: An Illustrated Lecture and Book Signing with Zoe BeloffDate: Monday, November 29thTime: 8:00 PMAdmission: $5“Adventures of a Dreamer” is a hand-drawn prototype for a comic book, that appears to have been created by Albert Grass, founder of the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society in the 1930’s. It seems possible that he originally intended “The Dreamer ” to be hero in the mold of “The Spirit”, or even “Superman” with extraordinary powers but this conception quickly changed. By episode three “The Dreamer” looses his ability to fly, landing on the ground with a loud “ouch!”. He remains earthbound and the work becomes a more serious investigation into his own psychic life.

Many of Albert Grass’ anxieties speak directly to us today. He suffered the aftereffects of a brutal war. He worried about his neighbors being evicted. He felt the guilt of an artist who feels he should be more deeply engaged in a struggle for social justice. Previously unpublished, this facsimile edition makes available for the first time what appears to be an early attempt to use the language of the comic book to graphically manifest the unconscious.

Zoe Beloffis an artist who elides the roles of archivist and creator. Her work has been featured in international exhibitions and screenings at venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Freud Dream Museum in St. Petersburg and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Known for her multimedia installations incorporating film and video, Beloff aims to connect the present with the past and to call into question the assumed boundaries between historical fact and creative interpretation. In celebration of the centennial of Sigmund Freud’s visit to Coney Island in 1909, Beloff resurrected the world of the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society, along with the visionary ideas of its founder, Albert Grass. Beloff’s publications include The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and Its Circle and The Somnambulists: A Compendium of Source Material.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here. You can find out more about Zoe Beloff and her work by clicking here. You can find out more about Albert Grass The Adventures of a Dreamer--and purchase a copy!--by clicking here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Images from said publication above; full details below. Hope to see you there!

Albert Grass Adventures of a Dreamer: An Illustrated Lecture and Book Signing with Zoe BeloffDate: Monday, November 29thTime: 8:00 PMAdmission: $5“Adventures of a Dreamer” is a hand-drawn prototype for a comic book, that appears to have been created by Albert Grass, founder of the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society in the 1930’s. It seems possible that he originally intended “The Dreamer ” to be hero in the mold of “The Spirit”, or even “Superman” with extraordinary powers but this conception quickly changed. By episode three “The Dreamer” looses his ability to fly, landing on the ground with a loud “ouch!”. He remains earthbound and the work becomes a more serious investigation into his own psychic life.

Many of Albert Grass’ anxieties speak directly to us today. He suffered the aftereffects of a brutal war. He worried about his neighbors being evicted. He felt the guilt of an artist who feels he should be more deeply engaged in a struggle for social justice. Previously unpublished, this facsimile edition makes available for the first time what appears to be an early attempt to use the language of the comic book to graphically manifest the unconscious.

Zoe Beloffis an artist who elides the roles of archivist and creator. Her work has been featured in international exhibitions and screenings at venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Freud Dream Museum in St. Petersburg and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Known for her multimedia installations incorporating film and video, Beloff aims to connect the present with the past and to call into question the assumed boundaries between historical fact and creative interpretation. In celebration of the centennial of Sigmund Freud’s visit to Coney Island in 1909, Beloff resurrected the world of the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society, along with the visionary ideas of its founder, Albert Grass. Beloff’s publications include The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and Its Circle and The Somnambulists: A Compendium of Source Material.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here. You can find out more about Zoe Beloff and her work by clicking here. You can find out more about Albert Grass The Adventures of a Dreamer--and purchase a copy!--by clicking here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Friday, November 19, 2010

"Oddities," Morbid Anatomy's new favorite television program, is in danger! Below is a plea from Mike Zohn, co-proprietor of Obscura Antiques and Oddities, the antique shop which is at the center of this new and wonderful Discovery Channel reality show:

Fans of Oddities...We need your help.....First, thank you for all the kind words and all. We appreciate all of it. It seems that for some reason Discovery has not run any TV ads for our show. Our ratings have been OK, but most people don't know there are 2 episodes back to back...and many more don't even know about the show. Seems it might be hard to build an audience and a following without some TV advertising......

So, what can you do to help?

You can watch! Oddities airs on the Discovery Channel on Thursday nights, from 8-9 PM; At 8:00 PM, catch a screening of last week's episode; stay tuned for a new episode at 8:30.

Lodge a complaint to Discovery Channel asking for commercials and better promotion! You can do so (as I just did!) by clicking here.

Spread the word; if you like the show, tell your friends!

"Friend" them on Facebook! This is also a great way to keep apprised of the latest "Oddities" and shop information.You can find them on Facebook by clicking here.

Come to our "Oddities" screening party on December 9th at 8:00 PM! You can find out more details about that by clicking here or here.

Thanks everyone for your help in saving this new and wonderful television show!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Next Monday at Observatory, Paradiso Contapasso presents a fantastic double feature: the haunting cello music of New Orleans-based Helen Gillet followed by an illustrated lecture about Dante's trip to hell and back by medievalist Nicola Masciandaro. All for just $5.

The music begins at 7 and the lecture at 8.

Full details below; hope to see you there!

A Paradiso Contapasso Double Feature:Beyond the Sphere: Getting Lost with Dante and the Music of Helen GilletAn illustrated lecture with professor of medieval literature Nicola Masciandaro preceded by the a performance by Helen GilletDate: Monday, November 22Time: 7:00 for music; 8:00 for lectureAdmission to both: $5 Everyone knows that Dante went to hell and back. “Non vedi tu come egli ha la barba crespa e il color bruno per lo caldo e per lo fummo che è là giù?” [Do you not see how his beard is crisped and his color browned by the heat and smoke that this there below?], a lady is reported by Boccaccio to have said upon seeing the poet in Verona.

The underworld is written all over the author’s image. In many circles, from video game consoles to college lecture halls, the Divine Comedy is virtually synonymous with Inferno. The “Paradiso Contrapasso” concept presents a liberation from this stygian fixation. A contamination of paradise with the essential principal of divine punishment? A saturation of eternal torment with celestial, empyreal bliss? Or maybe something more radical than either. The damnation and perdition of the very idea of paradise? Or a penalty that would itself comprise it?

The word paradise, from ancient Persian, signifies an enclosed or walled garden. The divine punishment of paradise might then be imagined as the annihilation of its constitutive boundary, an exposure of the garden to what is beyond it. Does paradise disappear? Or does everything become a paradise?

Tonight’s lecture will take this theme as an invitation to read Dante as a radically paradisical poet, one for whom the original and ultimate state of being is never somewhere else, before or after, but is something that must always, and precisely in its absence, always be here.

Nicola Masciandaro is Associate Professor of English at Brooklyn College (CUNY) and a specialist in medieval literature.

To find out more about the lecture, click here; to find out more about the music of Helen Gillet, click here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Tonight, at the Merchant's House Museum, as part of the exhibition “Memento Mori: The Birth and Resurrection of Postmortem Photography" blogged about recently here:

Wednesday, November 17, 7 p.m.Reading: Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The ChildrenMerchant's House Museum29 East Fourth Street, New York, NY 10003The Museum is located between Lafayette Street and BoweryFree, space is limited.

Dr. Stanley Burns of The Burns Archive will speak about the practice of postmortem photography from the 19th century until today, and sign copies of his latest book in the renowned Sleeping Beauty series. A reception to meet the author will follow.

To RSVP Call 212-777-1089

To read more about postmortem photography at The Burns Archive click here.

Stay tunes for a similar event Morbid Anatomy Presents event at Observatory sometime in the new year!

Plus!--Spectators are invited to cheer on their favorite specimens--Groove to taxidermy-inspired tunes & video--Imbibe ferocious specialty drinks!--Prizes will be awarded by our panel of savage taxidermy enthusiasts!

More here. The image you see above is the Pope Mouse by Mouse Angel/Jeanie M. You can purchase your very own Pope Mouse--or Angel, or Punker Rocker, or Mousealope, or Hamlet (!) at The Morbid Anatomy Library; click here or email me here for details.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

News alert! Just in time for Christmas, Criterion--God bless them--has released a deluxe, 2-DVD edition of Charles Laughton's 1955 unparalleled masterwork--and Morbid Anatomy film favorite--The Night of the Hunter.

Director Charles Laughton memorably and accurately described The Night of the Hunter as "a nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale," and that it is. Starring film-noir bad boy Robert Mitchum in a much imitated performance as an evil preacher with "love" and "hate" tattooed on his knuckles (see top image), a slightly depressing Shelley Winters, and a late-career star turn by silent film mega-star Lilian Gish (see bottom image), the films is by turns hallucinatory, menacing, and darkly comic, but always lyrically beautiful at the same time. It is truly its own thing entirely; I simply cannot recommend it highly enough.

The new Criterion edition supplements the film itself with an archival interview with the film's cinematographer Stanley Cortez, a 2 1/2-hour making-of documentary, and interviews with a variety of critics and scholars.

To read a really wonderful article about the history of this remarkable, influential, and idiosyncratic film, click here. Click here to purchase the Criterion Edition of Night of the Hunter from Amazon.com. To purchase same in Blu-ray, click here.

We in New York have been enjoying the last unseasonably warm days of a spectacular autumn. In my opinion, there is simply no better place to enjoy the autumn colors in the area than in the "400 acres of rolling lawns, spectacular trees and impressive memorials" that comprise the epic Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

You can find out more about this fantastic cemetery--founded in 1863--by clicking here. You can see more photos--all of which I took on a visit my boyfriend and I made last Sunday--by clicking here, and can see larger version by clicking on the images.

We at Morbid Anatomy are very very excited to announce an upcoming viewing party for our new favorite television series, "Oddities," which you might recall from this flurry of recent posts (1, 2, 3).

For those who have not yet heard about this somewhat surprising manifestation of a burgeoning popular interest in curiosities and the macabre: "Oddities," which premiered a few weeks ago, is a new Discovery Channel-based reality show documenting the day to day life of Obscura Antiques and Oddities, Morbid Anatomy's favorite purveyor of curious artifacts in New York's East Village. The series "stars" friends, proprietors, and Observatory regulars Evan Michelson and Mike Zohn, as well as old friend Ryan Mathew, and follows their adventures and travails as they pursue artifacts for the shop, research provenance and history of objects, and interact with their collector clientèle.

The "Oddities” Marathon and Party event--which will take place on Thursday, December 9th at Observatory--will feature a three episode marathon of the program, special drinks, a DJed after party, and prizes and give-ways throughout the night. Members of the "cast" will also be available for questions and comments.

You can see some clips (recommended!) and find out more about "Oddities" by clicking here.

Full details follow. Very much hope to see you there!

"Oddities” Marathon and PartyA three-episode marathon of the new television series Oddities, with give-aways, special drinks, surprise guests, and after partyDate: Thursday, December 9Time: 8:00Admission: $5Presented by Morbid Anatomy

On Thursday, December 9, you are cordially invited to join Morbid Anatomy and Observatory as we celebrate the new television series based on our favorite purveyor of curious and amazing artifacts, Obscura Antiques and Oddities in New York City’s East village.

The evenings festivities will include–as a special treat for those of us without cable–a screening of the first three episodes of Oddities, which will reveal, to the discerning eye, an assortment of familiar Observatory faces, including former lecturers Evan Michelson and Mike Zohn as well as a variety of members of the wider Observatory community. There will also be special drinks, a DJed after party, surprise guests, and prizes and give-ways throughout the night. Members of the cast will also be available for questions and comments.

To find out more about the event, click here. You can see some clips and find out more about "Oddities" by clicking here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

I have just been alerted to two wonderful looking events at the Hunterian Museum in London by Jane Hughes, head of learning and access; Full details follow; if you're in London, be sure to check out either or both!

A rare late-night opening of the museum and a chance to find out about the role of the College in modern surgical training. Enjoy a drink among the historical specimens collected by John Hunter and other eminent surgeons of the 18th and 19th centuries. Also available is an opportunity to tour the new Eagle Project teaching suite, find out about dissection at the College and try your hand at ‘keyhole’ surgery techniques and surgical suturing.

Gorgets and Bistouries: An Evening EncounterDate: Thursday, December 2Time: 7-9pmAdmission: £8, includes a glass of wine or soft drink

Artist and musician Matthew Robins and photographic artist, Elaine Duigenan collaborate to bring you a magical encounter with ‘instruments’ – both the musical and surgical. Through words, song, live animation and shadow play they will bring you an unforgettable performance in the realm of ‘The Dreadful and The Divine’.

Enjoy an atmospheric late view of the Hunterian Museum and the exhibition and following in the vein of the moving image, create your own zoetrope inspired by Matthew’s unique art.

Monday, November 8, 2010

This Thursday at 8:00 PM at Observatory, please join Morbid Anatomy and curator Dr. Laurens de Rooy for a highly-illustrated ‘dissection’ of the spectacular and fascinating Amsterdam-based Vrolik Anatomical Museum, a specimen of which is pictured above. Copies of the beautiful and lavishly illustrated new book about the collection--entitled Forces of Form-- will also be available for sale and signing.

Full details below; very much hope to see you there!

Come and See: The Amsterdam Anatomical Collection DissectedAn illustrated lecture and book signing with Dr. Laurens de Rooy, Curator of the Museum Vrolik in AmsterdamDate: Thursday, November 11Time: 8:00 PMAdmission: $5Books will be available for sale and signing.

Two skeletons of dwarfs, rare Siamese twins, cyclops and sirens, dozens of pathologically deformed bones, the giant skull of a grown man with hydrocephalus, the skeleton of the lion once owned by king Louis Napoleon, as well as the organs of a babirusa, Tasmanian devil and tree kangaroo – rare animals that died in the Amsterdam zoo ‘Artis’ shortly before their dissection.

Counting more than five thousand preparations and specimens, the Museum Vrolikianum, the private collection of father Gerard (1775-1859) and his son Willem Vrolik (1801-1863), was an amazing object of interest one hundred and fifty years ago. In the 1840s and 50s this museum, established in Gerard’s stately mansion on the river Amstel, grew into a famous collection that attracted admiring scientists from both the Netherlands and abroad.

After the Vrolik era, the museum was expanded with new collections by succeeding anatomists. What motivated the Vroliks and their successors to collect all these anatomical specimens, skulls, skeletons, and monstrosities? were did their material come from? How did these collections help to built up their views on the origins of life forms?

Since 1984 the museum is located in the academic Hospital of the University of Amsterdam. Recently the museum collections were portrayed by the photographer Hans van den Bogaard for the book Forces of Form. These images will form an essential part in this talk, a ‘dissection’ of the Amsterdam anatomical collection.

Dr. Laurens de Rooy (b. 1974) works as a curator of the Museum Vrolik in the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam. He studie Medical Biology, specializing in the history of science and museology. during his internship he researched the collection of father and son Vrolik. In 2009 he obtained his PhD in medical history.

You can find out more about theis event on the Observatory website by clicking here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Next Saturday, November 13th, join American Museum of Natural History archivist (and friend of Morbid Anatomy) Barbara Mathé for an illustrated presentation about the museum's vast collection of magic lantern slides as part of the Margaret Mead Festival. Entitled "Lantern Slides: Looking Glass through History," the presentation will, in the words of the press release, "share the behind-the-scenes history of the lantern slides, photographs of Museum employees painting the original slides, and [detail] the fascinating story of their journey from AMNH to a basement in Staten Island and back again."

Having been so fortunate as to be allowed a tiny peek at the riches of the archives of AMNH--where I once had the honor of working--I simply cannot wait for this presentation and the opportunity to find out more about this seriously incredible collection!

Join the Mead for an urban dig through the American Museum of Natural History’s library archives. Once the foundation of a long-running and wildly popular series of lectures by zoologist and AMNH founder Albert Bickmore, the Museum’s collection of more than 40,000 glass lantern slides were used as an educational tool starting in the late 1800s and were later circulated throughout New York City’s public school system. Often hand-colored these slides depict myriad subjects, such as landscapes, scientific specimens, and field expeditions captured around the world by the Museum’s own scientists. In celebration of the recovery of about 20,000 of these rare artifacts, the Festival presents the opportunity to view these unique historical documents and stunning works of art through the eyes of in-house archivist Barbara Mathé. She will share the behind-the-scenes history of the lantern slides, photographs of Museum employees painting the original slides, and the fascinating story of their journey from AMNH to a basement in Staten Island and back again. Historian Constance Areson Clarke and media historian Alison Griffiths will also be on hand to discuss the wider history of lantern slides and educational media.

Oddities--the previously discussed reality show [sic] based on my favorite store in the world, Obscura Antiques and Oddities--premiered last night on The Discovery Channel. I am very happy to report that I actually quite liked the show, which came to me as some surprise as I am, in general, no fan reality television. Oddites is actually a television show I would--and will!--watch, and I am so proud of all my friends whose knowledgeable, thoughtful, and non-histrionic participation is elevating it well above the usual reality television fare!

You can view my favorite clip from last night's episode--which stars a very charismatic playwright and Obscura regular named Edgar and his encounter with a straitjacket--by clicking here. Note: you will have to sit through an obligatory commercial to get to the good stuff, but it is definitely worth it.

Oddities will be airing Thursday nights at 8:00 PM on the Discovery Channel; I highly highly highly recommend you find a way to check it out (I surely will be...). You can find out more--and view many more clips!--on the Oddities home page (pictured above) by clicking here.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

This Saturday, November 6, the Morbid Anatomy Library--pictured above--will be open to the public from 12 until 6 PM. So feel free to stop by for a visit, a perusal of the new acquisitions, and perhaps even a touch of seltzer.

For more about the Morbid Anatomy Library and for directions and other such information, click here. To take a vicarious tour of the collection via Newsweek, click here, and via Rocketboom media, click here.

During the second hald of the 19th century, the belief spread that the phenomenon of dermatographism (or 'dermographism', or 'skin writing') was linked to hysteria and other mental or nervous disorders. Here a female patient at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris has had her diagnosis 'Démence précoce' (dementia praecox) 'written' on her back.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Thanks so much to my friend Megan for letting me know about the super exciting looking exhibition that will be on view at Versailles Palace in France through February of next year.

The show--entitled "Science and Curiosities at the Court of Versailles"--will tell the story of scientific inquiry, rational amusement, and natural and artificial curiosities at the grand royal court of Versailles. To illustrate this worthy topic, the exhibition will gather and display--for the first time ever--a variety of artifacts that once comprised part of the monolithic "royal collection" and are now--post French Revolution and disciplinary divides--housed in a variety of anatomical, anthropological, natural historical, and art museums around France.

The artifacts will reveal "a new, unexpected face of Versailles as a place of scientific inquiry in its most various forms," trace the stories of the relationship between natural philosophers and the royal court, and bring "together works and instruments from the old royal collections, spectacular achievements of beauty and intelligence, for the first time."

Good stuff!

Here is the full description from the website:

[Science and Curiosities at the Court of Versailles] reveals a new, unexpected face of Versailles as a place of scientific inquiry in its most various forms: the Hall of Mirrors electricity experiment, Marley Machine on the banks of the Seine, burning mirror solar power demonstration, etc. It brings together works and instruments from the old royal collections, spectacular achievements of beauty and intelligence, for the first time.

Versailles is the place where control over science was exercised. At the urging of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's "prime minister", the royal authority became aware of the benefits of scientific research. In 1666 Colbert founded the Academy of Science, establishing a new contract between the government and scientists. Many "natural philosophers", as they were known at the time, including some of the most famous, assiduously frequented the Court as physicians, army engineers, tutors, etc. The physicists Benjamin Franklin and Abbot Nollet compared their theories in front of the king and the encyclopaedists Diderot and D’Alembert met in the office of Dr. Quesnay, physician to Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's favourite. Some courtiers were real experts.

The Château de Versailles offered many research resources. Anatomists and zoologists could study the menagerie's ostriches, pelicans, rhinoceroses and other rare animals, botanists and agronomists the plants on the grounds of the Trianon and "hippiatrists", the forerunners to veterinarians, the horses in the Grand Stables.

Educators developed new teaching methods using cutting-edge tools for the royal children and the kings' personal practice. While Louis XIV considered himself a protector of the arts and sciences without practicing them, his successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI, became true connoisseurs. A presentation to the king or demonstration before the Court was the highest honour, equivalent to winning a Nobel Prize. Many people know about the first hot-air balloon flight, but numerous other events have fallen into oblivion, such as the burning mirror demonstration in front of Louis XIV or the electricity experiment in the Hall of Mirrors under his successor's reign.

You can find out more on the exhibition website--which will be on view until February of next year--by clicking here. You can see the Tympanum Player Automaton in full automaton action by pressing play on the Youtube viewer above.

If anyone makes it to this exhibition, I would love to see images/hear a report!

Top two images are installation views of the exhibition from the Corbis Images Blog. The rest of the images from the exhibition website and are captioned, top to bottom:

The Tympanum Player Automaton; Peter Kintzing (1745-1816) and David Roentgen (1743-1807)

Rhinoceros gifted in 1769 to King Louis XV by the French governor of Chandernagore

Waxen Indian head from the Cabinet of the Marquis de Sérent; originally on display in a window of the Marquis de Sérent's ethnographical cabinet in Rue des Réservoirs at Versailles acquired for the princes' education.